Moon Township, Pa. – At his first meeting of Allegheny County superintendents, Aaron Thomas noticed that he was the youngest educator in the room. Only 31 at the time, he was surrounded by men and women who were 10, 20, 30 years his senior.
The situation would have been enough to intimidate most, yet this newly appointed head of the Cornell school district handled it with aplomb.
Just as he did Robert Morris opponents a decade earlier.
"Basketball prepared me for a lot of things," said Thomas, now in his fifth year as the superintendent at Cornell, which is five miles from the RMU campus. "So, when I walk into a room with superintendents who have more experience than me, I say to myself, 'But did they play against the University of Pittsburgh when it was the No. 2 team in the country? Did they face some of the challenges I've faced on the court?' I'm not saying I'm better or tougher than anyone else, but my experiences have certainly benefited me."
As a player from 2000-04, Thomas was a versatile, 6'7" forward with a sweet shot.
A really sweet shot.
He left RMU as the school's all-time leader in career three-point field goals with 218 (Jeremy Chappell surpassed him five years later). He also ranks second in program history in consecutive games with a three-point basket (29), fourth in single-season three-point shooting percentage (.456) and fourth in average three-pointers made in a season (2.69 in 2003-04).
As a senior, he finished second in the NCAA in three-point field goal percentage.
"I'm most proud of the three-point career record," said Thomas, who was recruited to RMU by Jim Boone (who left for Eastern Michigan prior to his freshman year), played a season for Danny Nee (who left for Duquesne) and finished his career with Mark Schmidt. "I'm proud of that because I lived in the Sewall Center. I'm not lying when I say that. I knew that I didn't have the athletic ability to run and jump like some other players, so I worked as hard as I could every day. There were no off days for me."
A cerebral sort who earned a bachelor's degree in secondary education and a master's in instructional leadership at RMU, Thomas was enamored with the process, whether it was in basketball or in education.
He obsessed over film study, practicing with precision and after-hour shooting sessions. It was not uncommon to find the native of Middlebury, Ind., working out in an empty gym hours after his teammates had departed. So dedicated to the game was Thomas, who scored a then-school-record 39 points against Missouri-Kansas City as a junior, that he and teammate Chaz McCrommon averaged an NCAA-best 38.6 minutes per game in 2003-04, a school record.
The only way to get him off the floor was to drag him off. Literally.
That very thing occurred in a win against Bucknell late in his senior season. Thomas' body, quite simply, shut down.
"I cramped up, and when I say that, I mean I cramped up everywhere," said Thomas, who averaged 13.9 points and 6.9 rebounds as a senior. "My calves, hamstrings, quads, groin. I had to be dragged to the training room. I drank nothing by Gatorade. Five gallons of it."
Two days later, the dedicated Thomas was back in the starting lineup, wobbly limbs and all.
"I didn't want it any other way," he said.
Thomas' thirst to succeed carried over into the classroom. After graduating from RMU, he spent a year at Westminster University to earn his principal papers. At age 27, he became the principal at Cornell. Four years later, after earning his superintendent letter and, eventually, his doctorate at Pitt, Thomas moved into his current role at Cornell.
He and wife Casey, also an RMU grad and a third-grade teacher at Cornell, are the parents to sons Stone (8) and Gavin (6) and daughter Finley (4). Thomas learned early on that Pittsburgh would become home because, "I heard a saying that Pittsburgh girls don't like to leave."
"But I also love everything about Pittsburgh," said Thomas, a former assistant coach at Moon High School, which won a WPIAL title during his tenure. "Being from a town with two or three stoplights, I was hooked on what Pittsburgh offered. This is my home."
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